How do I delete a read-only file?

Question

I\'ve got a junk directory where I toss downloads, one-off projects, email drafts, and other various things that might be useful for a few days but don\'t need to be saved f

Answer 1

According to File.Delete's documentation,, you'll have to strip the read-only attribute. You can set the file's attributes using File.SetAttributes().

using System.IO;

File.SetAttributes(filePath, FileAttributes.Normal);
File.Delete(filePath);

Answer 2

The equivalent if you happen to be working with a FileInfo object is:

file.IsReadOnly = false;
file.Delete();

Answer 3

Why do you need to check? Just forcibly clear the read-only flag and delete the file.

Answer 4

Hm, I think I'd rather put

>del /F *

into a sheduled task. Maybe wrapped by a batch file for logging statistics.

Am I missing something?

Answer 5

According to File.Delete's documentation,, you'll have to strip the read-only attribute. You can set the file's attributes using File.SetAttributes().